Vasily Grossman's novel is one of the great narratives of battle, a moral monument, a witness-report in fiction from the heart of 20th-century darkness and an astonishing act of truth-telling. By
Francis Spufford

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 2 August 1950: Mr. Stalin has emphasised the need to strengthen the Army of a Socialist State in conditions of "capitalist encirclement," in a review of Marxist principles

Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 25 January 1937: All the most infamous State trials of history seem to have been no more than ingenuous practical jokes when compared to the judicial concoctions now prepared by Stalin in Russia

At its première in 1926, Bulgakov's play about the Russian intelligentsia caused members of the audience to faint in recognition of their plight. As The White Guard opens in London, Will Self considers the shadow cast over the writer's work by a phone call from Stalin